Anabasis eBook

[1] Lit. “{Musos} (Mysus), a Mysian by birth,
and {Musos} (Mysus) by
name.”

III

Now when Cheirisophus did not arrive, and the supply
of ships was 1 insufficient, and to get provisions
longer was impossible, they resolved to depart.
On board the vessels they embarked the sick, and those
above forty years of age, with the boys and women,
and all the baggage which the solders were not absolutely
forced to take for their own use. The two eldest
generals, Philesius and Sophaenetus, were put in charge,
and so the party embarked, while the rest resumed their
march, for the road was now completely constructed.
Continuing their march that day and the next, on the
third they reached Cerasus, a Hellenic city on the
sea, and a colony of Sinope, in the country of the
Colchians. Here they halted ten days, and there
was a review and numbering of the troops under arms,
when there were found to be eight 3 thousand six
hundred men. So many had escaped; the rest had
perished at the hands of the enemy, or by reason of
the snow, or else disease.

At this time and place they divided the money accruing
from the captives sold, and a tithe selected for Apollo
and Artemis of the Ephesians was divided between the
generals, each of whom took a portion to guard for
the gods, Neon the Asinaean[1] taking on behalf of
Cheirisophus.

[1] I.e. of Asine, perhaps the place named in
Thuc. iv. 13, 54; vi. 93
situated on the western side
of the Messenian bay. Strabo,
however, speaks of another
Asine near Gytheum, but possibly means
Las. See Arnold’s
note to Thuc. iv. 13, and Smith’s “Dict.
Geog.
(s.v.)”

Out of the portion which fell to Xenophon he caused
a dedicatory offering to Apollo to be made and dedicated
among the treasures of the Athenians at Delphi[2].
It was inscribed with his own name and that of Proxenus,
his friend, who was killed with Clearchus. The
gift for Artemis of the Ephesians was, in the first
instance, left behind by him in Asia at the time when
he left that part of the world himself with Agesilaus
on the march into Boeotia[3]. He left it behind
in charge of Megabyzus, the sacristan of the goddess,
thinking that the voyage on which he was starting
was fraught with danger. In the event of his
coming out of it alive, he charged Megabyzus to restore
to him the deposit; but should any evil happen to
him, then he was to cause to be made and to dedicate
on his behalf to Artemis, whatsoever thing he thought
would be pleasing to the goddess.

[3] I.e. in the year B.C. 394. The circumstances
under which Agesilaus
was recalled from Asia, with
the details of his march and the
battle of Coronea, are described
by Xenophon in the fourth book of
the “Hellenica.”